


i don't believe in being lonely

by tenebrism



Category: Boyfriend (Band), K-pop
Genre: M/M, Partially (??) Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-17
Updated: 2015-03-17
Packaged: 2018-03-18 07:32:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3561401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenebrism/pseuds/tenebrism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jeongmin always wants too much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i don't believe in being lonely

**Author's Note:**

> i keep saying i'm going to write something else, but everything i touch turns to boyfriend, i guess. and these guys. 
> 
> idk what happened here. i'll go ahead and say that the ending is not as unambiguously... romantic as these things usually are, but it's still happy, i swear.

There’s probably something weird about sitting around watching one of your best friends do pushups in a tank top, but Jeongmin reasons that the living room isn’t for exercising anyway. It’s not really his fault.

“Who are you showing off for?” he asks, grinning.

Hyunseong pauses with his arms extended and makes a face at him. “Who’s watching?”

“Ha, ha.”

If it were him, Jeongmin thinks, and he had some kind of regular workout routine for their schedules to interfere with in the first place, he’d just not do it. That’s why he doesn’t. But Hyunseong isn’t like that, and even if he doesn’t have time to make it to the gym, he’s determined to do something. And that’s why _he’s_ the one being told to take his shirt off all the time, and Jeongmin sticks to what he’s good at, which is... whatever it is. Being fully clothed, if nothing else.  

Hyunseong doesn’t really seem to care if he watches, though, and it’s fun to heckle him.

He jokes about it being excessive, but honestly, it’s more admirable than anything. It’s not like Jeongmin has never worked out, but he can’t seem to do it with enough consistency to achieve results. When they first met, Hyunseong was awkward, much skinnier, and at some point he decided he wanted to be obscenely ripped, apparently, and now he is. It’s pretty amazing how that works.

Jeongmin wants a lot more than Hyunseong does, he thinks, but that clarity of purpose and plan doesn’t always come so easily to him. He envies it, sometimes.

****  
  
  
  


And, okay, if he watches more than he talks, that’s envy too. Probably.

****  
  
  
  


When Hyunseong stops to rest, he stays cross-legged on the floor, relaxing. His face is pink from exertion, his hair all messed up, bleached strands up in the air and sticking to his face, but he looks content. Jeongmin watches him lift his shirt to wipe his face, and keeps watching as Hyunseong just sits there. He calmly observes Hyunseong’s shoulders, his collarbones, the shape of his hands, and he doesn’t realize he’s staring until Hyunseong says, “What?” and Jeongmin responds, “What?” and thinks, _wait, what?_

__****  
  
  
  


So, attraction, Jeongmin can handle. He’s attracted to a lot of people a lot of the time, and mostly he doesn’t think about it in great detail, because pursuing those thoughts too far leads to a lot of awkward situations when you live with five other guys and are always being watched by someone.

But he thinks about it anyway, and that’s probably his stupidest mistake.

Hyunseong is handsome, despite how much Jeongmin has teased him for all the years they’ve known each other. Jeongmin has always been aware of this in theory - he wouldn’t really be here if he was totally hideous, would he - but it’s never been a thing he consciously noticed. Once he does notice, he has to consider it out of curiosity, and the thoughts go something like this:

1\. There’s obviously a reason for Hyunseong being partially undressed all the time, and Jeongmin has never felt the need to complain about it. Objectively, it’s a nice body, and Jeongmin can admire that kind of thing, but it’s probably kind of weird how much he admires it sometimes. He’ll admit that.

2\. Hyunseong’s face is a pretty good face, and Jeongmin likes to look at it most of the time. This is good, because he has to look at it a lot. The nice feelings he gets looking at Hyunseong’s face are probably because they’re friends, it’s familiar, and he looks so absurdly happy when he smiles sometimes that everything feels a little warmer, which is stupid.

3\. Jeongmin wouldn’t mind kissing him, probably, now that he thinks about it. Hyunseong would probably turn red and start giggling awkwardly, but that idea seems more endearing than embarrassing. And they’re always touching, really, but Jeongmin sort of wonders what it would be like if he could touch Hyunseong for real, just for the sake of touching him, just to figure out what he felt like. Or vice versa, if Hyunseong - no, that’s too much, and Jeongmin has to stop his thoughts from wandering before they wander too far.

4\. He’s fucked. He’s totally fucked.

****  
  
  
  


Everything that’s been normal for them for years becomes really, really weird once Jeongmin realizes that maybe he has a thing for Hyunseong. Maybe he has for a while. The feeling doesn’t seem unfamiliar or new, more like he just never paid attention to it.

It’s things like this:

Hyunseong drapes his arm across Jeongmin’s shoulder, and Jeongmin leans into his side automatically.

They talk with their faces too close together, Hyunseong smiling at Jeongmin like he could stare at him forever and be fine with it.

Jeongmin is the one Hyunseong asks to walk to the store with him, to get dinner with him; he’s the only one who keeps Hyunseong awake irresponsibly late talking about nothing in particular.

This is all normal. They’ve always been close. There’s nothing weird about any of it, but every moment feels like an incomplete sentence, like something is supposed to happen and never does.

It drives Jeongmin nuts. He’s used to wanting things and not getting them, but that doesn’t make it less frustrating.

Maybe he’s just greedy. That’s not a surprise.

****  
  
  
  


“Are you writing something?” Hyunseong comes up behind Jeongmin’s chair, leans down and drops his arms around Jeongmin’s shoulders. Jeongmin’s hands slide from the keyboard.

“Nah,” he says, “just dicking around, I guess.”

Hyunseong is warm, and with no one watching, Jeongmin doesn’t feel the need to pull away from him. “Oh,” Hyunseong says, and straightens up, leaving his hands on Jeongmin’s shoulders, squeezing lightly. “I liked it. What you were playing.”

Jeongmin laughs. “It wasn’t even - anything,” he says, and commits the tune to memory anyway.

****  
  
  
  


The joke is that Hyunseong is the one who’s infatuated.

He obviously isn’t really - it’s all a joke in the first place, but it isn’t hard to believe. Hyunseong doesn’t exactly hold back his affections, especially in public. Maybe he just thinks the reaction is amusing, and it’s incredible how shameless he can be when he feels like it.

(“It’s not that I like him,” Jeongmin said once, grinning at the camera, “he’s the one that likes me.”)

So it’s funny. Ha ha.

****  
  
  
  


A normal person, a responsible person, would ignore this. At the very least, they wouldn’t do anything to encourage it, but Jeongmin really has no way of avoiding the problem other than avoiding Hyunseong outright, which is pretty much impossible.

And there’s this weakness he has - when he wants something, when he wants something for so long that it eats at him (and it does, it blooms like a flame once he sees it for what it is), he can’t just let it go. He has to reach for it, even if he’ll probably fail, even if he has no idea how to get it.

So.

He has to do something, has to say something. He can’t just want and not do anything about it - not when what he wants is so close.

****  
  
  
  


The twins are gone for the night, filming, so Hyunseong has their room to himself. Jeongmin stands outside of the door awkwardly for two minutes before he knocks, softly, because he could just walk in, but he’s already aware this is stupid and he doesn’t want to be an asshole on top of it.

It takes a second, but Hyunseong opens the door, looking rumpled and sleepy. He doesn’t look all that surprised to see Jeongmin there. “Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” Jeongmin says. “Can I come in?”

He does, and then they’re standing a few feet apart with the door closed. Jeongmin realizes he’s got no idea what he’s doing or what he plans to say, he just needs to say something. He’s not a careful person, but he feels like he needs to be careful now.

“Do you need something?” It’s stupid, how Hyunseong doesn’t even get annoyed at him for waking him up. He could probably stand to be annoyed at Jeongmin more often.

“No,” Jeongmin says, then, “I don’t know,” then, “You, maybe. I guess,” and then he laughs awkwardly.

“Oh,” Hyunseong says.

“Yeah.” Jeongmin’s mouth is dry.

The room is painfully quiet.

“It’s not important,” Jeongmin says after a few long moments. “I, uh, I feel like I need to tell you, but I don’t know what I’m trying to say.”

Hyunseong is looking at him really hard. The little voices in Jeongmin’s brain that usually forget to kick in when he’s doing something dumb are finally hissing at him like, _this is so stupid, what the hell is wrong with you?_  “You’re not joking,” Hyunseong says, quietly, and it’s sort of a question but not really.

“I’m always joking,” Jeongmin says. “But no. I - saying ‘I like you’ doesn’t sound right, I don’t know what to - it’s not a big deal, I just feel like it’d be worse if I kept it to myself.” He pauses. “Ah, it’s… sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s - it’s okay. You don’t need to -” Hyunseong keeps looking at his hands, putting them in the pockets of his sweatpants and pulling them out again.

“I have to ask,” Jeongmin starts, and he sees Hyunseong squeeze his eyes shut. “Because I’ve always - I’ve sort of wondered, you know, and I didn’t-”

“Jeongmin.”

“It’s really okay, just, do you - I just want to know.”

Hyunseong runs his hand through his hair and inhales, exhales slowly. “You know how… important you are… to me,” he finally says. Jeongmin can see how hard he’s trying - to choose his words carefully, to stay composed. He feels kind of bad about it now. “And if we weren’t - if this were any other - ah, it’s a stupid question. Of course I do.”

“You do like me?”

Hyunseong laughs, but it sounds more sad than anything. “I had a crush on you when I was seventeen. Then, I liked you, now, it’s just -”

“The way it is?”

Hyunseong nods.

“Yeah,” Jeongmin says. “I get that.”

The silence between them isn’t easy. It should be easy - that’s how this is supposed to go. Jeongmin should feel better.

“I can’t,” Hyunseong says weakly. “We can’t.”

Jeongmin doesn’t notice he’s pressed himself against the wall until he tries to step back further. “Right. I.”

He feels really stupid, and he can’t believe he thought this would help, somehow. Hyunseong is too responsible, too reasonable to do anything about this, whatever this is, no matter how he feels. And now Hyunseong is standing in the middle of his own bedroom looking like he just got punched in the gut. Jeongmin feels worse for that than anything.

“I know. It’s fine. But I was going to go crazy if I didn’t say something.”

Hyunseong stands up a little straighter. He nods. “Yeah, it’s okay. I really…” He trails off, like he knew exactly what he was going to say this time but thought better of it.

He looks like he wants to reach out and do something, but he doesn’t.

“Sorry for waking you up,” Jeongmin says. The tension is still bugging him. Nothing’s happened. Nothing’s resolved.

But it’s fine. Whatever he was expecting - it’s okay. He can deal.  

“Goodnight,” he says, and slips out the door before Hyunseong can say anything else.

****  
  
  
  


Practice is always rough, but it could be worse. At least all of Jeongmin’s limbs are in pretty good shape this time.

He’s been lying flat on his back for at least a minute, breathing. The floor is cool through his shirt. He isn’t thinking about anything until he hears footsteps approaching his head, and he has to open his eyes.

“You alright?”

So Hyunseong sits down, and Jeongmin maneuvers himself upright and takes the extra bottle of water Hyunseong is holding. They don’t talk for a while, just sitting in silence until the others, scattered around the room in varying states of exhaustion, start to get up, talk, walk away.

“Thank you for, um.” Hyunseong looks like himself now, nervous and a little embarrassed but not unhappy. “For telling me. You know.”

Jeongmin sips his water, unsure what to say. Nobody else is paying attention to them, at least.

“I don’t like keeping secrets,” Hyunseong says. Jeongmin knows that means multiple things right now. He understands.

“You’re not very good at it either,” Jeongmin says, smiling.

Hyunseong laughs. “No.” He leans to the side, bumping Jeongmin’s shoulder with his own, and Jeongmin laughs too.

****  
  
  
  


Hyunseong doesn’t sneak up on him, but Jeongmin doesn’t stop working. It’s not like it’s pressing - even if he does get a song out of this, no one will hear it for a while, maybe ever - but the smallest idea, the tune, a string of lyrics that probably don’t even constitute a verse, won’t leave him alone.

“It sounds familiar,” Hyunseong says.

Jeongmin looks at him. Maybe it is. He’d sort of forgotten.

He shakes his head. “It doesn’t work.”

“It will,” Hyunseong says, like he doesn’t doubt it at all. Jeongmin feels his face warm up a little.

He makes himself look away and stares at his laptop screen instead. “Hmm. C’mere,” he says, and Hyunseong steps over and bends down next to him. “It doesn’t work,” Jeongmin says, “when I’m singing it, but maybe…”

He turns his head; Hyunseong nods, looking pleased. So Jeongmin plays what he’s got, as half-assed as it is, and sings it. Hyunseong is attentive, and he sings it back to him once he’s done.

Jeongmin nods. “One more time,” he says, and returns his hands to the keys.

Hyunseong obliges him. It’s not much, but Jeongmin can’t deny that it sounds good like this, in Hyunseong’s voice, stronger than his own. It could be something, he thinks.

Hyunseong claps. “It’s good!” He seems delighted, for whatever reason. “I don’t see what the problem is.”

“You like everything,” Jeongmin argues, but it’s nice. Hyunseong is there, and he likes Jeongmin and the things he creates, and that matters. All the things he wants and can’t have aside, the moment isn’t missing anything. It’s enough.

“Maybe,” Hyunseong says, “but that doesn’t mean it isn’t good.”

“Whatever you say.”

Hyunseong stands up straight, stretches. “It’ll be amazing if you work on it,” he says. “You always get it right eventually.”

Jeongmin snorts. Hyunseong puts his hand on Jeongmin’s head, and Jeongmin tries to duck away, grinning.

That’s a little optimistic even for him, Jeongmin thinks, but all he can do is keep trying.

 


End file.
